Happy Birthday Dad!

We had a great week, topped off by a very fun birthday celebration for Gabe. Lisa and Greg contributed to the fun by baking Gabe one of the best cheesecakes any of us have EVER had. More on that later... Before all the birthday fun began, Colin was having a normal week - practicing his singing (shrieking) skills, climbing on everything in sight, and trying like hell to grab the "ungrabbable"... Once Saturday rolled around, he was ready for Badger game day! The excitement started the second he woke up from his nap - wearing red, of course! Well, Colin was ready for the excitement to start. He had to just stand around twiddling his thumbs while his parents packed his diaper bag completely full of everything they could think of to distract him in case he got bored/overtired/hungry/otherwise inconsolable during the game...at the bar. (Yes, baby at the bar.) I tried to warn him that the bar could be loud with lots of cheering, and I reminded him that when he was a LOT littler (like 2 months ago), clapping and yelling used to make him cry. He promised he would NOT be scared this time - he is a big boy who knows how to cover his ears when things are too loud. Duh. Colin kept his word and clapped right along with all the other Badger fans. Although we didn't catch him clapping in this video, he is getting very excited about the cheering crowd! By the end of the game, he really caught on to the whole clapping idea and would join right in when people started cheering.

The good old DC Badger bar - Go Bucky!

On Sunday, Colin and I surprised Gabe with coffee and birthday presents in bed. Colin was much more interested in the packaging of the presents than the presents themselves.

After having a birthday breakfast of french toast (using Grandpa Van Epp's secret recipe - he would be proud!), we spent almost the entire rest of the day outside so we could enjoy the 60+ degree weather. For the first 30 minutes, this is all I did...

After I realized I could easily spend the next 5 hours following him around the yard and pulling things out of his mouth, I decided to relax the "Not in the mouth!" rules a little and let him eat anything that did not present a choking hazard. Gross? Yes. Much more fun for mom? Absolutely. Thus, if you look closely at the last picture, you can see my new relaxed tasting regime led to mud mouth...and mud sleeves, mud fingers, mud face, mud ears, mud hair....

Colin was never far from his new favorite toy - his truck! You have never seen pride like the look on his face when he pushes himself around with this thing.

Here are a couple videos from the first day Colin played around with his new truck - much to my chagrin, he moves a LOT faster (and I swear almost cracks his head open) even just 1 week later!

At one point, he had to pull over and crawl to the fence to get a closer look at the black object peering through...

And of course we spent a lot of time playing in the leaves!

It wasn't all fun and games. Gabe, Lisa and Greg (and sometimes I) raked what turned out to be almost 30 bags of leaves!! In exchange for their help, we all enjoyed homemade chicken noodle soup, pizza, birthday cheesecake and plenty of beer. It was a great day!

Finally, as somewhat of a punishment to myself, I've included a video showing the ridiculous things a new parent will do to try to (1) make their baby laugh and (2) catch it on film. I happen to think Colin's belly laugh is one of the best sounds I have ever heard, and so I am constantly doing stupid things to make him laugh really hard. I've learned in this process that something he finds hilarious one minute becomes old news very quickly, but on Sunday I managed to continue to make him laugh for several minutes when I would fake a sneeze...that is, of course, until I turned on the camera (which is not even pointing at him OR me!?!). Like clockwork, he stopped laughing almost immediately, and then I'm just the asshole fake sneezing on her child - and videotaping the wall next to us as I do it. Anyway, just thought someone out there (Jamie??) might be able to relate to this!!